Detection and measurement of acoustic signature and radiated noise signals are important factors in the design and development of marine systems, for example, platforms. As understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, an acoustic signature represents a unique acoustic pattern that is produced by a structure typically when externally excited, and may take the form of amplitude and frequency of signal, for example. Acoustic signatures have been used to detect and monitor surface and semi-submerged and fully submerged submersible vehicles, such as remote mine hunting vehicles or RMVs.
Various systems have been developed to measure the acoustic signature of an object in water. Systems that have been used for measuring the acoustic signature of such objects are generally permanently installed in specific geographic locations. Such permanently installed systems are cost prohibitive to use and cause significant logistical and financial impediments in the implementation of routine testing, measurement and calibration checks during integration phases of platform design and construction. Moreover, deploying such systems is both time and skill intensive. Such systems tend to therefore be used only for final qualifications of the marine platforms. Some portable systems are available, however, they have not been found to be very reliable and further, such portable systems often lack real time feedback on the measured acoustic signature as well as range to the platforms. Alternative mechanisms are desired.